PENDLETON — After a New Palestine win in the first of two quarterfinal matches Tuesday night, the other two Hancock County schools in IHSAA Class 4A Sectional 9 at Pendleton Heights — Mt. Vernon and Greenfield-Central — met to see who would make up the other half of Saturday’s semifinal.
As they did in the regular season, the Marauders came out on top by defeating the Cougars 3-1.
“I told them, at least tonight we competed. We came out and went point for point most of the night,” Greenfield-Central head coach Candice Wyatt said. “There were a lot of things that didn’t really go our way, but at the end of the day we fought hard.”
Mt. Vernon jumped out to the early first-set lead before a kill from G-C’s Rilee Roland tied it 4-4. Three Mya Grigsby points pushed the G-C lead to 7-4.
The Marauders reeled off the next four points to retake the lead and never looked back.
In a 10-9 game, Mt. Vernon’s Ava Whitmore held serve for five straight points and the Marauders coasted to the 25-17 win. Over the stretch, Sophia Damer had a kill and block, Sierra Holverson had a kill, and Whitmore had an ace.
“When we’re in our system we’re really tough to beat,” Mt. Vernon head coach Samantha Grider said. “We don’t have that money hitter that we go to all the time, but our front row is really solid.”
The Cougars tied it in the second set behind four Grigsby kills.
In an 8-8 game, the Cougars reeled off five of the next six points and held the lead until a late Mt. Vernon push. Down 22-17, the Marauders scored five straight points capped off by back-to-back Olivia Johnson kills.
An ace by G-C’s Makenna Rankins set up the Cougars for the win, and a net error by Mt. Vernon sealed the set.
“Things were clicking for us. It seemed like we were making a push and able to hold our serve longer than we were in the other sets,” Wyatt said. “Mt. Vernon had to earn a lot of their points in that set and we were playing better offensively.”
Led by five Easton Wampler kills, the Marauders pulled away late to take the third set.
After a Grigsby kill gave the Cougars a 14-10 lead, Mt. Vernon scored the next seven points. Over the seven-point stretch, Wampler had three kills.
G-C tied it at 17, but Mt. Vernon took eight of the last nine points. Wampler recorded two more kills in the final eight points, and both Holverson and Alivia Morgan added a kill.
Helped by four G-C service errors, the Marauders won a back-and-forth fourth set that saw five lead changes.
“Every single player knows that 99 times out of 100 they’ll get a serve over the net. But when there’s a big crowd, stakes are high, and they’re rushing, they’re a lot more likely to make those errors,” Wyatt said. “I kept trying to tell them to relax and slow down when they go back to serve, but we still had a few more errors than we would have liked.”
A Roland kill tied things at 11, and the two teams had ties at 12, 13, 14, and 15 before Mt. Vernon made the final push.
Kick-started by a Morgan kill, Mt. Vernon recorded four straight points and jumped ahead 19-15.
The lead was enough for Mt. Vernon to hold on for the 25-19 win.
“We just minimized errors in the third and fourth sets, and our defense really picked it up,” Grider said.
On the night, Wampler and Damer led the Marauders with 11 kills each.
For Greenfield-Central, Grigsby finished with 12 kills and two aces, and Roland had 10 kills and two aces.
Mt. Vernon will face New Palestine Saturday at 10 a.m. in the first of two semifinal matches. The winners will play in the championship at 6 p.m.
